t,
and often consulted her in difficulties; but that she was a 'wet
hen' she never for a moment doubted. "She is so calm; nothing rouses
her--though wet hens are not always calm! Oh! I can't understand
it!" Her eldest daughter inspired Lizabetha with a kind of puzzled
compassion. She did not feel this in Aglaya's case, though the latter
was her idol. It may be said that these outbursts and epithets, such as
"wet hen" (in which the maternal solicitude usually showed itself),
only made Alexandra laugh. Sometimes the most trivial thing annoyed Mrs.
Epanchin, and drove her into a frenzy. For instance, Alexandra Ivanovna
liked to sleep late, and was always dreaming, though her dreams had the
peculiarity of being as innocent and naive as those of a child of seven;
and the very innocence of her dreams annoyed her mother. Once she dreamt
of nine hens, and this was the cause of quite a serious quarrel--no
one knew why. Another time she had--it was most unusual--a dream with
a spark of originality in it. She dreamt of a monk in a dark room, into
which she was too frightened to go. Adelaida and Aglaya rushed off with
shrieks of laughter to relate this to their mother, but she was quite
angry, and said her daughters were all fools.

"H'm! she is as stupid as a fool! A veritable 'wet hen'! Nothing excites
her; and yet she is not happy; some days it makes one miserable only
to look at her! Why is she unhappy, I wonder?" At times Lizabetha
Prokofievna put this question to her husband, and as usual she spoke
in the threatening tone of one who demands an immediate answer. Ivan
Fedorovitch would frown, shrug his shoulders, and at last give his
opinion: "She needs a husband!"

"God forbid that he should share your ideas, Ivan Fedorovitch!" his wife
flashed back. "Or that he should be as gross and churlish as you!"

The general promptly made his escape, and Lizabetha Prokofievna after a
while grew calm again. That evening, of course, she would be unusually
attentive, gentle, and respectful to her "gross and churlish" husband,
her "dear, kind Ivan Fedorovitch," for she had never left off loving
him. She was even still "in love" with him. He knew it well, and for his
part held her in the greatest esteem.

But the mother's great and continual anxiety was Aglaya. "She is exactly
like me--my image in everything," said Mrs. Epanchin to herself. "A
tyrant! A real little demon! A Nihilist! Eccentric, senseless and
mischievous! Good Lord, how u